Toshiba OCZ RC100 240GB M.2 2242 NVMe SSD Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing and Availability

At the time of this review, Toshiba’s OCZ RC100 with 240GB can be yours for £83.77 or $78.00.

Design

Toshiba’s OCZ RC100 is not your everyday drive, yet it’s compatible with most systems. The most obvious difference is the physical size of just 20 by 42 mm. The tiny size makes it perfect for small form factor systems that otherwise would rely on slower mSATA solutions. A not so obvious difference is the single-chip design where both the NAND and controller have been packed into one chip. This design makes it more energy efficient which is a bonus for portable systems.

Performance and Power

It is clear that Toshiba’s RC100 doesn’t break any speed records, but it wasn’t designed to do so. The RC100 is a budget drive made for systems that otherwise couldn’t reap the benefits of NVMe drives due to their usual size. That said, it beats the speed of SATA-based drives for any system and it comes at an affordable price.

While the RC100 isn’t that much faster than SATA SSDs in some areas, there are other things to keep in mind than the plain performance figures. NVMe-based SSDs use fewer CPU resources which allow more resources to be used for other tasks while it also reduces the overall power consumption of the system. The drive already has a low power consumption through the BGA design, only adding to the benefits of the RC100 in any battery-driven device.

Pros

• High compatibility through 2242 M.2 form factor
• Offers faster than SATA speeds, even in space-constrained SFF systems
• Power efficient BGA design
• Budget price

Cons

• Performance at the lower end of the NVMe spectrum

“Toshiba shows that you don’t have to follow the norm to create a good drive. The OCZ RC100 delivers better than SATA performance in a tiny size and with an efficient design.”

We would like to thank Toshiba for this sample.